Less than 3 years after its celebrated opening, despite pointed punditry and challenging growing pains, Apple’s App Store is about to claim 10 billion App downloads. To celebrate, as they did when iTunes reached 10 billion downloads, Apple is giving away a $10,000 iTunes gift card to the person that purchases the 10 billionth download.
“As of today, nearly 10 billion apps have been downloaded from the App Store worldwide. Which is almost as amazing as the apps themselves. So we want to say thanks. Download the 10 billionth app, and you could win a $10,000 iTunes Gift Card. Just visit the App Store, and download what could be your best app yet.”
Historians will note that the iTunes Store took about 8 years to achieve the 10 billion downloads milestone. Considering the plethora of iOS devices (iPhone, iPad, iPod touch) it is easy to see how the App Store has achieved such great success in such a small amount of time.
As I write this article, the App Store is getting about 1,000 downloads every couple seconds, according to Apple’s counter (currently running at about 9.77 billion). If you’re a mathematical genius, you might be able to calculate when you should start scooping up every free App in the App Store.
Looking back on your contribution to 10 billion Apps in 3 years, what’s your favorite iOS App? Let me know in the comments and good luck!